WicketMaiden

UPDATE: After Shohei’s latest HR in the win against the Yankees, he now leads the way in all MLB according to Baseball Reference with 1.8 bWAR (Gerrit Cole is 2nd with 1.5), although Fangraphs seem a little less impressed and have him tied for 2nd with 1.2 fWAR (behind Matt Chapman’s 1.4 fWAR). Trout has fallen away quite a lot and is down to 0.5 bWAR and 0.9 fWAR (tied for 20th in fWAR). Renfroe, Sandoval, and Quijada all have a healthy 0.6 bWAR. With Wantz, Urshela, and O’Hoppe also looking pretty good at 0.5 bWAR. In the hall of shame there will be few surprised by Tepera ‘leading’ the way with a pretty eye-watering -0.7 bWAR for his four innings of work so far. Suarez (-0.4 bWAR) and Loup (-0.3 bWAR) trail in his wake with the ball in hand, with Rengifo also channeling his inner-bullpen with a poor -0.3 bWAR, worse than even David Fletcher’s -0.2. Ward and Rendon both have 0.2 bWAR, and Lamb is at 0.0 bWAR, so he’s giving the team pretty much exactly the same as a AAAA type player would be expected to give in the same situations (just saying, Perry). Fangraphs agree about Lamb's value (-0.1 fWAR), and have Renfroe up at 0.8 fWAR just behind Trout, then a big step back to Urshela with 0.4 fWAR. Wantz, Ward, Quijada, and Detmers all come in at 0.3 fWAR; then another half dozen at 0.2 fWAR including O’Hoppe and Sandoval. Rendon doesn’t care as much about fWAR with 0.0 (the same as Loup), and fWAR doesn’t care much for Anderson with a team ‘leading’ -0.3 fWAR. Tepera has -0.1; Rengifo and Drury -0.2 fWAR. And did I mention Shohei's home run in the win against the Yankees?

If he really cared it would have been a home run.

The Intangibles would be a great name for a band.

It's the sheer scale of the ineptitude that impresses me. They are bad at pretty much everything and continue to contrive new and exciting ways to completely undermine themselves. Terrible on the bases, stupid steals, multiple hit batters (by pitchers and catchers) and error after error in important phases of the game with the glove, the ball, and the bat. All with an underlying theme of really, terrible decision making and pitiful execution throughout the team and staff. Woeful.

Watching the IPL is much more fun that this.

@Swordsman78 hey, chap, next time you see uncle Phil, could you ask him why the hell he's sending a runner to steal 2nd with a man already on 3rd and two outs? Thanks very much.

Well put, @arch stanton. An excellent, insightful summary.

Ok, I'll accept that the use of the term gene-therapy may be inaccurate. But it's not a vaccine, and the long-term effects of the treatment are still unknown, as they haven't been tested long term in humans. Do you accept that?

What did I post that was inaccurate?

Possibly because it's not a vaccine, it's an experimental therapy. The long term effects of which have never been tested on humans.

Nonsense. Without salt you die, salt is essential for life.

I thought that when watching the game, sure Rendon's throws could have been better but Lamb made a real mess of both of them.

@Jeff Fletcher would you say it's a more hitter or pitcher friendly league? Thanks.

Tilt

Bucket

Acumen

Another Minor Leaguer to keep an eye on may be Trey Cabbage, who is putting together a very nice season in AAA. A free agent from the Twins system, Cabbage joined the Angels as a free agent in 2022 and went on to have a really good season for the Trash Pandas last year: .327 / .434 / .664 / 1.098 for a 182 wRC+. This year he is going even better in AAA: .462 / .488 / .872 / 1.360 for a 217 wRC+. His BABIP looks like an unsustainable .517, but a deeper dive shows he had a BABIP last year of an equally 'unsustainable' .474 for the season, and the year before that had a BABIP of .393. Add to that his extra base hits of 8/18 this year, 17/37 last year, and 29/64 in '21, and you can see the guy clearly has some serious power, and is trending upward in almost all categories across the last three seasons. wRC+ was 131 in 2021, 182 in '22, and 217 in '23 Slugging was .382 in 2021, .664 in '22, and .872 in '23 Avg. was .264 in 2021, .327 in '22, and .462 in '23. This is his age 26 season, so maybe the guy is a late bloomer who has finally worked it out. He hasn't really nailed down a position yet, playing LF, 1B, and mostly DH this year, so with the Angels team profile at MLB level he may be a trade chip rather than a future everyday player for us. Whatever happens, he's one to watch.

That was a really nice outing from Canning, very encouraging and good to see him back, and nice to see the bullpen do its job. Kudos to Phillips for a really nice game too, that run he manufactured all on his own was great fun, who needs RISP hey?

...Shack

Good for them, but I'm pretty much indifferent to any team outside of the AL West. Angels or nothing for me.

Magnificent

Rare

Warren